Real life has plenty of bullies and terrorists. I like to think he was referring more to a "super villain" personification. We don't have those in the real world. We have rivals governments and philosophies that lead to war. Do you really want a super powered hero fighting North Korea, drug lords and bank robbers? We're talking about action, sci-fi comic book movies here. Iron Man vs Kim Jong Un would be a very short and anti-climactic movie.

Isn't that what every Nolan Batman movie was about? Iron Man is more similar to Batman in that he is a real world character dealing with more real world threats. Almost everything great about Iron Man is Cold War and business related.

We don't have super villains but we do have villains. Real world terrorists would make the Joker and Magneto blush. Just go watch some 9/11 videos. That was a murder plot straight out of a comic book.